there was a ratty grin on his face. In the light from the lamp it looked like a
devil’s mask, and Ryan thought the sooner it was destroyed the better for all.
His right hand shot up, hard, the heel of it smashing up into the underside of
Hagic’s jaw so eruptively that the jawbone cracked, blood vessels in his neck
exploded and ligaments tore. Hagic’s head rocked back, a gargled grunt bursting
out of his mouth in a fine spray of blood, and Ryan’s left hand, fist balled,
rocked into his stomach with the force of a pile driver. Hagic jackknifed, dry
heaving, and Ryan reached past him and pulled the door shut, his left hand
yanking up the SIG-Sauer.
He spun around and the SIG spat three times, fwip-fwip-fwip.
The first round hit the last man on the stairs in the back, torpedoed him
through the rear of his rib cage; it plowed up into his heart and opened his
chest in a bloody volcano.
The second round hit the next in line, a head shot that spray painted the wall
beyond. The guy spun into the third man, throwing him sideways, his gun thumping
down onto the carpet. The third man, too, fell onto his rifle. Ryan’s slug
smashed into the wall above his head, gnawing plaster.
For a second there was stillness, Ryan gazing up at the third man, who gaped
down at him in shock through the banister. The guy clambered to his feet, not
yelling, too stunned even to scream, but dragging at his M-16 as a reflex
action.
Ryan smacked his right hand into the SIG’s butt, switched fingers, hit him with
two shots in the chest, banging him back against the wall in the shadows.
Even as this happened, Ryan was leaping up the first flight, booting down on the
prone body of the first man and clutching at the corner pole of the banister,
yanking himself up and around and grabbing the third man as he tottered forward
on the rebound from the wall. He was just in time. Another couple of seconds and
the guy would have slammed into the supports and either up-and-overed, crashing
down to the lobby below with a hell of a racket, or plowed straight through the
posts, making even more of a row.
Ryan pushed him onto the stairs, a slumped heap, then stood up and peered down
at Hagic on the floor below. He could see the wall-eyed man glaring upward,
clutching his gut, still unable to speak or yell or scream, only wheeze and
vomit. Ryan leaned over the banister and shot him, fwip, the round powering
through his chest and heart, expending itself into the carpeted floor.
Ryan cocked an ear for any untoward sounds from below but could hear nothing
through the closed door. He moved lightly downstairs, on the balls of his feet,
still on adrenaline burn, the screen of his memory playing over the scene back
in the bar. Unless they’d all moved around some, there was a guy standing in
front of the entrance door at the far end of the room, and he had to be nailed
first and foremost.
He could do it slowly or he could do it fast. If he did it slowly—if he opened
the door, wandered casually into the bar, his piece hidden behind his back, and
then threw a round at the guy by the outside door (or at least the guy who
should be by the outside door)—there was always the chance of something going
wrong, possibly badly wrong.
Those goons out there were young, undoubtedly nervy in a situation like this.
Just Ryan walking out from the rear and no one else might spook them, then
trigger them. There was always that chance.
If he did it fast, on the other hand—erupted into the room and hit at least one
of them—the shock factor would be enormous, he knew. The remaining two goons
would be thrown off balance. They’d be totally unnerved, ripe for slaughter.
If only he knew what the hell was going on in the bar. And the longer he waited
in this lobby, the more twitchy those guys would get. By now they’d be thinking